Nanomechanical Motion of Microcantilevers Driven by Ion-Induced DNA Conformational Transitions

In this paper, we report the nanomechanical motion of a microcantilever due to the conformational transitions of DNA molecules that are functionalized on the surface of a microcantilever. In particular, the conformational transitions of DNA molecules can be induced by the change of ionic concentrations, which results in the bending deflection motion of a microcantilever. It is shown that a cantilever-DNA hybrid system is able to sense and detect the chemical environment changes such as pH change and/or ionic concentration change, and also that microscale device such as microcantilever can be actuated using molecular conformational changes. Our study provides a new insight into the development of a novel nano-bio-hybrid system based on microdevice coupled with molecular motors for chemical sensing as well as chemical-driven actuation.